


Name within the Noise

by Corin



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gabriel is the best wingman, Radio Calls, Tumblr Prompt, can we keep him?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 09:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20005945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corin/pseuds/Corin
Summary: "I always wondered who was that Bellamy guy."----------------Bellamy didn't hear Clarke's radio calls, but what if Gabriel did?





	Name within the Noise

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the idea from [biberoni's blog](https://biberoni.tumblr.com/post/186562734167/ok-but-what-if%22). I'd love to have more Bellamy-Gabriel interactions on the show, so here's a fic.

Bellamy was pacing.

Walking in small circles around the cabin, just like his thoughts in his head. It was useless, but he needed to move. After everything that they just went through, sitting still felt like a betrayal. Clarke was in danger. Again. And he had to wait. Again. In one moment she was safe, the next she marched right into the lion's den risking her life. Again. He was left behind. Again. And–

Octavia's sudden laughter struck him like a punch in the gut, tearing him away from his thoughts. Glancing through the window, he noticed that the girl was, hard to believe, giggling. Beaming, surrounded by some of the Children of Gabriel. And for a moment he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Bellamy didn’t remember when was the last time he saw her looking so... light. As if walking through the anomaly not only opened her eyes to the harm she had done, but also gave her the energy to finally bear and face this burden.

His lips curled into a barely noticeable smile. Maybe if they survive this war, there will come a moment when they’ll get a second chance - not to rebuild what they had, because that was a path leading nowhere, but to build something new. Something better.

"So it was you, huh?" Gabriel's sudden question took him by surprise. 

"Excuse me?" he asked tearing his eyes away from the window, brows scrunched in confusion. 

"Bellamy," the man answered matter-of-factly. "The Bellamy. The one Clarke was talking to all these years." 

For one heartbeat everything stopped. Bellamy’s mouth fell open, the word ‘shocked’ not able to even scratch the surface of the turmoil caused in his mind by this revelation. 

"Wha..." he barely managed to stammer. 

And Gabriel. Gabriel he spent dwo days in the woods searching for. That man dared to, of all things, laugh at him. 

Stopping his work on the bomb for a moment, he watched Bellamy with a genuine interest, but by how his lips slightly trembled, it wasn’t difficult to guess the man was trying his best to supress a chuckle. It was hard to believe that there was such a bloody and sad story behind this genuine face. At least before looking into his eyes - there was a certain kind of timelessness hiding behind them, experience earned throughout the ages that made him look thirty and three hundred years old at the same time. 

"I never thought that I would actually meet you two. Fate really has a strange sense of humour." 

Finally absorbing what the Old Man in not so old skin just said, Bellamy’s eyes flew wide open. 

„How do you know about this?” was the only question he was able to voice, his thoughts running a thousand miles per second. 

Gabriel pointed at the entrance to the room with a screwdriver, before focusing his full attention back on his work. 

„Saw that tower outside that looks like a mad man’s Christmas tree? For some reason it receives all the radio signals sucked here by the anomaly. I’ve heard her talking for years, even got used to it a bit. Every evening I would sit outside, breathe the air, relax and listen what this Clarke from the other side of the universe was up to today. And it always started the same way,” he glanced at him with a soft smile „’Bellamy, if you can hear me,’... and I always wondered who was that Bellamy guy. Was he alive or not? Could he actually hear her, or not?” 

He paused and looked at Bellamy, truly looked, as if assessing if this mysterious stranger actually lived up to his expectations. 

„What did he do to be so loved?” Gabriel almost whispered and Bellamy felt as if with these few words all air was sucked out of his lungs, but the man didn’t notice, or was kind enough to pretend he didn’t, and only nodded to himself. „Well, now I know.” 

Suddenly, it was too much. 

Too much information he didn’t want to think about, or at least he tried to convince himself that he didn’t, because his thoughts seemed to have other plans. 

In a sudden surge of fatigue, he dropped to a nearby stool, covering his face with his hands. 

He couldn’t stop since she seemingly died. Again. That was the hard, cold truth. He tried, God knows he tried, but his mind was constantly going over all these hypothetical scenarios probably being a short route to madness... yet he couldn’t stop. Just couldn’t. It’s as if a dame broke in him, a wall surrounding his heart crumbled, letting in too much, letting out too much. 

What would happen if he stayed on Earth with Clarke? 

What would happen if he picked up at least one of her messages? 

What would happen if... 

But it didn’t happen. 

Bellamy lifted his head. The light gently coming through the window was illuminating the dust floating in the air. It was beautiful, in a way. A simple beauty you don’t usually pay attention to, because there’s always no time to spare. They never have these moments: to talk, to breathe, to just be. The silence in the room interrupted only by a slight rattling coming from the Gabriel's workspace. Even the conversations outside had died down to a barely audible hum. 

"What did she say? In the messages." At the same time, he was afraid to hear the answer and would give almost anything to get it. 

"The most random things you can imagine." Gabriel turned to him again. "How fresh berries taste. That after seventeen tries she finally managed to make some decent paints. That Madi, whoever that is, doesn’t like the storms, but she does, because they remind her of her first days on Earth. That repairing a leaking roof is a bitch," he laughed, but quickly sobered down. "That she’s afraid of what will happen to the girl if she were to get sick or die and leave her all alone. That there are days when she has enough and doesn’t want to leave the bed. That she misses her friends and her mom so much... that she misses you." 

The Old Man paused, as if wondering whether to continue or not. Each sentence was like a needle piercing Bellamy's heart. Missing pieces of a puzzle, pieces that were supposed to be his a long time ago, but somebody has scattered most of them before giving him this incomplete, sad box of unfulfilled dreams. 

A touch startled him. Gabriel's hand on his shoulder felt like a consolation and encouragement in one. And a strangely paternal gesture, if he was allowed to identify it as one. It reminded him of Kane ...he would give a lot to be able to talk with him right now. 

"So I have the answer to one of my questions: you haven’t heard her." 

"No," Bellamy shook his head in resignation. "Our radio didn’t work." 

"Well, you can use ours." 

He frowned, not understanding. 

"Radios. Outside. I mentioned them before?" Gabriel took a walkie-talkie from the table and pressed it into his hands. "You don’t have anything to do until the scouts return with the rest of the Children. I'm not saying it's a good idea, it’s your call, but if you want to hear her messages, go outside and listen." 

"It was one hundred and twenty years ago," Bellamy replied in disbelief. "Maybe one hundred and thirty, I'm honestly too tired to count right now." 

"Do you think it matters?" Gabriel snorted. "The anomaly has its own rules. Past and future. What we want and what we fear. All of these are mixing inside of it like in a very big kettle. No logic, no reason, that's just how it is. Who knows, maybe Lady Luck will smile on you and you'll get what you want. Maybe you won’t. But you'll never know unless you try." 

"If only I knew what I want," he muttered under his breath, staring warily at the radio. 

Gabriel looked as if he wanted to add something more, but he stopped himself, for which Bellamy was grateful. After a moment he left the makeshift cottage, careful not to come across any other members of the Children. Trying to explain why he slipped out of the house with a radio in hand seemed like trouble and they had enough troubles and suspicions for one day. 

The tower built from the connected radios really looked as bizarre as Gabriel described and was making a sound like a hornet's nest. From all sides something was pulsing, blinking, whispering, screaming, voices overlapping to create a truly unreal cacophony of sounds. 

How Gabriel could have thought that listening to this uncontrollable clamour is soothing, he had no idea. After only a few minutes, Bellamy began to feel a growing headache. For the last couple of days he barely slept and hearing this madness only intensified the tiredness. 

That wasn't something he could allow right now. 

Frustrated - with himself, with life, with this goddamn moon - he turned on his heel wanting to leave, but then the radio in his hand came alive. First it gave out a few sounds, clicks, the lights blinked. It made the impression of someone testing the receiver, clumsily adjusting the frequency and volume. And then, finally, came the words. 

_„Bellamy, if you can hear me... I don’t know if this thing is working, but if it is and you’re really getting this message, it’s been 10 days after Praimfaya and… I’m still alive.”_

The sound that bubbled in his throat... it was hard to describe it. As though hope and despair blurred into one. Pain and joy. A dream and a nightmare. 

It was so close, almost within reach. One simple message received many years ago to make his whole world look completely different. Bellamy didn’t want to deny it anymore, he simply had no strength left to do so. If he had heard her, everything would be different. It would.

He clenched his hand on the radio until his knuckles turned white. 

And it will be.

First they have to save their friends, their family, but when it's all over, he'll do it. He will ask her to tell him everything. Six years' worth of messages.

And when that’s done, maybe they'll be able to move on. Maybe they will do it together. This time hand in hand. 

How it was always supposed to be. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any mistakes or typos – English isn't my first language and I really suck at proofreading my own work, but I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
